Here’s What You Might Not Know About The Creation Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of the most amazing good luck stories of all time. Through a series of unlikely decisions and incredible strokes of good fortune two broke, inexperienced indie comic artists named Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird accidentally created one of the most enduring media franchises of the past 50-years.

Think there’s no way that doodle/short story/random ridiculous idea you’ve been kicking around could ever amount to anything? Think again. Before Michael Bay’s nostril-having monstrosities ruin everything you love, here are a few things you may not know about the creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…

1) The Ninja Turtles started as a dumb joke.

“This is the dumbest thing ever.”

That’s what Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman thought when the Turtles unexpectedly materialized during a late-night 1983 sketching session with friend and creative collaborator Peter Laird. For some unknown reason (perhaps the God of licensed plastic crap was speaking through his hands) Kevin Eastman drew a quick sketch of a turtle in a mask, holding a sword, which he labelled a “Ninja Turtle”. He passed the drawing to Laird as a joke, who drew a better version. Not one to be topped, Eastman then drew four turtles. Then Laird drew four and added “Teenage Mutant” to the title. Eastman and Laird had a chuckle, then put the bongs away (okay, I’m just assuming on that part, but come on) and went to sleep.

Eastman

Really more of a Ninja Tortoise. Just sayin’.

It was only the next morning when they looked over last night’s idiocy that it dawned on them that maybe, just maybe, they might have something here…

2) That first Ninja Turtle picture sold for 71 thousand dollars. Not a bad deal really, considering that the picture spawned a franchise worth billions of dollars.

Eastman/Laird

Fine art.

3) The Turtles are a parody of popular early-’80s comics, particularly Daredevil. Not only did the Turtles start out as a random, possibly stoned goof, but the early comics were intended as a wacky parody of ’80s comic book trends. Basically, during the early ’80s, ninety percent of the books on the shelves were either about teens (Teen Titans, New Mutants), mutants (X-Men) or ninjas (Ronin, Daredevil). I suppose not that much has changed.

The Turtles were especially blatant in their parodying of Daredevil. 80s Daredevil was very into fighting ninjas, particularly a clan of ninjas called The Hand, so the Turtles fought The Foot. Get it? Daredevil was trained by a guy named The Stick, so a guy named Splinter trained the Turtles. Get it?

Their origins were more or less the same too — a barrel full of radioactive ooze falls off a truck onto Matt Murdock blinding him and giving him his powers, and a barrel of radioactive ooze falls off a truck and knocks a bowl of turtles into the sewers in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. It was all a big wink wink, nudge nudge to comic book nerds, but when mainstream, non-comics fans saw the Turtles, they just thought TMNT had come up with all these good ideas first.

Marvel Comics

Oh, the ol’ radioactive materials truck. Where would comics be without it?

4) The Ninja Turtles owe their success to the IRS. Eventually Eastman and Laird decided to turn their random brain fart into a 40-page comic, but since no publisher in their right mind would touch something called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they had to self-publish.

Anyone who’s spent some time trying to make a go of it in an artistic field with little money knows tax day isn’t something to dread — hell, it’s Christmas. Eastman and Lair pooled their tax refund money and got a small loan from an uncle. All told, it added up to $2000, which allowed them to print 3000 copies of TMNT and buy a small ad in Comic Buyer’s Guide. Shockingly those 3000 copies sold out within weeks, so they printed 6000 more and quickly sold those as well. The ball was rolling, and it was all thanks to Uncle Sam’s generous tax collectors.

5) Donatello was almost named Bernini. One of the most inspired things about the Turtles is that they were all named after famous Renaissance artists. Not only did the names sound cool, but you could claim to your parents that the Turtles were cultured or at least mildly educational.

Originally the Turtles were going to have Japanese names, but thankfully Eastman and Laird didn’t know Japanese and couldn’t come up with anything that sounded convincing, so Laird grabbed his copy of Janson’s History of Art for inspiration. Eastman wanted to name one of the Turtles after Italian artist and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but they eventually went with Donatello because another name that ended with an “o” fit in better.

I’d be totally okay with Donatello being called Bernini if he also had the swank mustache.

I think this movie is going to make less than it wants to, considering most reviews seem to say there’s not enough substance there to coast on nostalgia for the older crowd. Of course it’s gonna make buckets of money from kids and families, but those aren’t the people nostalgic articles are really targeting.

My initial statement of it “flopping” was more curmudgeonly frustration and hope than anything else. I’m just tired of seeing it everywhere. Seriously, the T stop I take home from work everyday is covered in floor to ceiling vinyl of these monstrosities.

Kids are always going to find dumb crap to obsess about…..so I’d rather it be the Ninja Turtles they’re obsessing over than pokemans or whatever version of Dragonball they’re re-releasing at the moment.

I don’t see how they’re the “luckiest bastards ever”. They developed the characters. Wrote the stories. Illustrated the books. Risked their own money publishing and promoting. That’s not luck. That’s well-deserved success.

Sometimes well deserved does not equal success and sometimes the opposite does. That being said, they took what was supposedly a ‘bad joke’ and transformed it in a very interesting way. That is where the well deserved comes in. I have personally seen a lot of crap get a lot of effort and go nowhere, as it shouldn’t.